An experienced Assessment Team has just returned from Uganda after meeting with lawyers, law schools, courts, UN Staff and NGOs in Uganda's capital and surrounding rural areas. The visit, long in the planning, was the first step towards cementing local relationships and collaborations. It provided data and information that will inform planned large scale Trial Advocacy Training and Community Outreach programming in development for launch late in 2009. LWOB in the process of developing pilot programming designed for introduction in rural areas and villages. Our visit to areas outside Kampala confirmed the interest and needs in those areas for Rule of Law assistance, particularly in the criminal and inheritance/land ownership legal sectors.

LWOB working in collaboration with RWN, Rwanda Womens Rights Network has implemented the "WORTHWHILE" program model: Womens Rights To Have Worth, Homes and Inherit Land and Estates in Rwanda.

LWOB's efforts and work in the Child Inheritance Rights arena over the last several years is beginning to gain attention in the international community. LWOB has fielded several project proposals and a variety of NGO's working in Africa have joined the conversation with LWOB about women and children, their rights to inherit family property, reconciliation of customary law with developments in national legal inheritance and land ownership frameworks.

This week LWOB was awarded a stipend covering its costs to travel to Kenya and participate in a workshop of regional NGO's to collaborate, share findings and mechanisms being developed to address the problem.

The prevalence of HIV AIDS throughout the world and its impact on children and their ability to retain their homes is finally reaching the global community's attention. LWOB, through the generous efforts of lawyers in USA and UK, is among one of the few legal groups with significant research on the topic. For some time now, LWOB has been poised to launch legally and testamentarily oriented mechanisms aimed to keep children in their family homes and out of orphanages.

The two regions where LWOB is currently focused are Mozambique and Rwanda. Efforts are well underway to fund projects which would train trainers, in-country to begin reaching deep into rural communities with educational programming that targets women and children at risk. risk.

Individuals or corporations interested in contributing to LWOB's CHIRP Project (Child Inheritance Rights Program) are encouraged to contact Flavia Trevisani at LWOB headquarters.